


you're in my blood like holy wine

by burgundians



Series: holy wine [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Animal Death, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Oral Sex, Religious Content, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 08:54:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11123922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burgundians/pseuds/burgundians
Summary: On the first week of November of 1927, after an ocean and a rebirth, Credence Barebone returns to New York.





	you're in my blood like holy wine

> here is the deepest secret nobody knows  
>  (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows  
>  higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)  
>  and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
> 
> \- e.e. cummings

 

Tina Goldstein was struck dumb when she opened her apartment door on the first week of November.

“Hello, Miss Tina.” A hand clutched the hat to the young man’s chest. “Do you remember me?” There’s caution in that gaze and for one mad second all Tina can think of is how glad she is to see that he finally has a good winter coat.

“Credence… of course I remember you.” She’s still an Auror though, and all Credence does is raise an eyebrow when she points her wand and explains it’s just to make sure. 

“Revelio.”

Nothing happens.

“It’s you.” Her throat feels tight and it’s silly because she is so very glad to see him tall and healthy and _alive_ instead of that last memory she had of him, scared and betrayed and put down like a wild dog.

“It’s me.” He repeats quietly, stepping inside the apartment as she moves aside. “I just got back.” He continues, twisting the brim of his hat in his hands. “I’m sorry to barge in like this but it seemed like the best place to start.”

Tina reaches for the hat and he shrugs out of his heavy coat without a word. How deliberately he always moves, she thinks, not a limb out of place.

It’s a nice enough coat, Tina realizes once she has it in her hands, heavy and practical and warm, a Vienna department store tag peeking at her from the lining, and she feels the inexplicable urge to laugh and cry. 

The doors slide shut with a soft thud and credence is still standing in the same place she left him, looking around.

~

He doesn’t have eyes, or ears, or anything else, really, but he finds some comfort in that kind voice. It’s kept him company over the ocean wave, speaking to him of Nifflers and Mooncalves and Nundus and other things that he doesn’t recognize but sound marvelous all the same.

He can’t help the twinge of fear when he hears him sound upset for the first time since they got on the boat. Hands run through him clinically and he twists violently.

“Hush you.” He doesn’t know that voice and that strange accent, rolling and lilting at the end of the sentence. “I don’t know what you want me to do about it, if you wanted a golem you should have gone to Zivah.”

“I don’t want a golem and Credence is not an it.” The kind voice defends him and Credence settles when it appears the other voice won’t come near again.

“I know perfectly well what it is, Newt Scamander.”

There a rustling sound and he feels himself being moved in bubble.

“I came to You. The Witch of Évora does not turn away those in need.” Credence has always been a good listener and he understands power and respect. The kind voice is a supplicant in this.

He hears a sigh.

“Bring me the pig.”

The following hours are a daze but he hears cries and squeals and sheer terror.

And then he _feels_.

He’s drowning.

Ma had held him under the water once, her hand like a claw on his head, an Old Testament angel.

He feels that claw and he can’t believe he’s gone through all this to go back to the church and the tin tub again.

“You’re almost there, Credence.” It the kind voice and he sees two figures when the hand allows him to surge to the surface for a second before plunging him down.

“Not yet, not if you want him to have teeth.”

He takes a breath and it almost kills him.

He feels it, the air travelling through him, blood rushing through his veins, muscles stitching themselves back together, skin stretching, all the things he never bothered to think too much about, all that was happening in his body under the sharp twinges of pain. It’s extraordinary and awe-inspiring and when the hand digs into his skull and pulls him out he wonders, hysterically, if he is being born again.

“Welcome, Credence Barebone.” He hears the voice, a woman’s voice, before his mind turns blank, a sharp metallic tang on his tongue.

~

“Credence…”She starts once they sit down, the silence awkward and fragile. “How are you here?”

He doesn’t know how much he should tell, how much he _can_ tell, really. It’s all a blur of secrets he was bound to and things he truly does not understand. Some, he doesn’t know if he wants to.

“I don’t really know the specifics.” Only that he’s been melded from spare parts and glued with what’s left of his soul. “Just that I am. Here.” He adds.

Miss Tina’s hands twist together as she nods.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.” He doesn’t blame her. She thought he was dead. “I’m just really glad you’re alive.”

Before he leaves, assuring her that yes, he has a place to stay, he’s rented a room, _he’s fine_ , he can’t stop himself from swooping down and putting his arms around her. It’s ungainly and she’s surprised, before slowly reciprocating.

“Miss Tina…” He starts, drawing away. He has to say this before he loses his nerve, this is what he came to New York for, to set old affairs to rights. “You’re a wonderful person.”

He goes quickly, leaving her standing on the doorway.

Later, she’ll wonder how he walked past Mrs Esposito.

~

He comes to in a dark, cool room. He can see light escaping through the shuttered windows, drawing lines on the opposite wall. He takes a deep breath and forces himself to remain calm when the door opens and light floods the room.

“Ah, you’re awake.” It’s the voice. It’s a woman, short and buxom, wild black curls surrounding a sharp, almost hawkish face. He tries not to think of the claw on his skull.

He wants to ask where he is, where Newt Scamander is, who she is. He opens his mouth, but she waves her finger at him and the air crackles around them.

“Don’t, your vocal chords are still pulling themselves back together.” His mouth snaps shut, and she continues, laying a tray filled with jars on a small bedside table. “Don’t worry, it should be quicker now. Newt has gone into the city to get some things for you.”

She looks into his eyes, almost defiantly, and a cursory glance of the bedroom reveals the absence of mirrors. He feels a steady burning under his skin and he wonders what he looks like. She uncorks a vial and holds it near his mouth.

“Open.” He clenches his mouth shut and the press of his back teeth together sends a flash of pain through his skull. He keeps his mouth shut.

“It’s for the pain.” She rolls her eyes with a put upon sigh. “There’s a reason we never remember being born. Now, open.”

He reluctantly parts his lips and the woman pours the vial’s contents unceremoniously down his throat.

“You need not know my name. You are in Évora and this is my city.” He hears faintly before darkness takes him.

~

The diner is almost silent at the late hour, a couple of patrons sit in a corner booth talking quietly, the waitress at the end of the counter mechanically drying the mugs. He doesn’t move when a man sits on the stool next to him, just continues stirring the spoon around the tomato soup.

“Credence…” This was a mistake. He’s not ready for this, not ready to see him again. He feels like a child, Mr. Graves always had the ability to make him feel confused and focused all at once. The world narrowed down to him and he can’t help being angry at himself. One year, one continent, one ocean, and his surroundings shrink until all that’s left is Mr. Graves’ voice.

“Can I get you something, sir?” The tired waitress asks, drawn to their end of the counter.

“Just coffee, thank you.” Credence is silent as he hears the mug being placed on the counter, the sound of coffee being poured, the soft patter of her soles as she walks away. He can do this.

“Mr. Graves.” He hopes he sounds calm. The spoon keeps on stirring. “I’m glad to see you’re well.”

“Are you? You haven’t looked at me since I came in.” It’s not a lie, he just doesn’t know what he’ll do if he looks at the man sitting beside him. The spoon stills. He turns his head.

“I’m glad to see you’re well.” Credence repeats, looking into Mr. Graves’ eyes. “I really am.”

He looks healthy and strong and resolute, like the past year didn’t happen but for the burn scar on his left cheek, reaching into his ear.

“What?” He blurts out. Mr. Graves is just sitting there, staring at him, and he reaches up a hand to pinch at that spot between his eyebrows and it’s such a familiar move it steals his breath away.

“I…” Mr. Graves steels himself for a second before continuing. “I’m happier than you can imagine, seeing you.”

“You don’t look happy.” Credence doesn’t mean to blurt that out but he thinks Mr. Graves always looks serious when he looks at him, his brows tugging closer until lines form unbidden.

“That’s a design flaw, I’m afraid.” There’s a self-deprecating smile on his face now.

Seeing him there, silk scarf and heavy, expensive coat, it’s like nothing happened. Like the past year didn’t happen. Even his expensive brogues glint like always in the florescent lights, he notices when he looks down on the floor. He looks like a million bucks, he always looks like a million bucks. Even his voice sounds like money, every word soft and perfectly formed.

It made him hungry once. Seeing Mr. Graves made him feel greedy and grasping. He wanted all those things for himself, the good shoes, the fine coats, the cufflinks that cost more money than he’d see in a month. He’d wanted that mouth and those hands, too.

And then he was _magic_ , and Credence was ravenous.

He’s not hungry anymore. He can see the cracks now.

“You make me sad.” He half whispers and Mr. Graves just looks at him. His eyes widen almost imperceptibly, his jaw tightens.

He does not say, I see all of you and I like you more than I ever did.

His hands shake. His breath catches in his throat.

“I’m sorry I dragged you here.” Credence gets up and fumbles through his pocket, slapping the coins on the counter. The loud noise turns the head of the tired waitress and a sleepy patron. “That should pay for the coffee too.” He grabs his coat off the next stool and leaves, soup untouched, Mr. Graves still clutching the cup of coffee, knuckles white and bloodless.

A burst of cold wind makes him shiver when he steps outside and he can’t help glancing through the glass, at the tense line of Mr. Graves’ shoulders. He shouldn’t be upset. Mr. Graves promised him nothing, told him nothing. He never so much as touched him. Not the real one, at least. It’s not his fault Credence built castles in the sky.

It’s no excuse to be cruel.

~

“How did you bring me back?” He asks, leaning on a kitchen chair. He finally feels able to walk without fear his bones will snap.

“In water. And I killed a pig.” She answers absently, twisting the pestle in her hands.

“What?”

“A person’s body is mostly water.”

“I mean the blood sacrifice.”

“A pig is the closest thing to a man. I needed flesh and I needed blood. The rest we can leave up to magic, but I recommend leaving hair to grow naturally. I once tried to fix a bad haircut with magic and…” She grimaces and waves the pestle around.

Mr. Graves and Miss Tina don’t look like the sort to use pig’s blood. God help him, but Mary Lou was right.

“Is that usual? The blood?” He croaks out.

“No. Speaking of, you owe me a pig.” She points the pestle at him. “And a lot of wizards would be afraid of the things I’ve done. They’ll say that they are beyond these primitive methods. And your people are some of the worst.”

“My people?” He hardly thinks he has any people of his own, at least not anymore.

“Americans inherited all their bad habits from the English. Trying to turn magic into something vulgar.” She tsks, setting the mortar aside and reaching into her apron for a cigarette. “Magic is not a science any more than faith is.”

“Faith.” The word blurts out of him, unbidden.

“Yes.” She stops for a few seconds, collecting her thoughts. “Magic and faith are one and the same, truly. At the very birth of all things, when you had faith, you had magic. Then men tried to make sense of it. It is the original sin.”

Credence can’t hear anything beyond the cadence of her voice, the kitchen is silent. He knows a thing or two about original sins.

“Magic is not to be understood,” she continued “it is to be awed.”

“And your magic, of course, that was essential.” She continues. “You want to live. What else do you want?”

“Everything.” He confesses. Greed has always been his sin.

“Power for power’s sake.” She laughs and his hackles rise. “I’ve heard worse.”

~

He waits a week before approaching him again. Credence sees him leaving the Woolworth when the sun has long since set. Mr. Graves senses him before he makes himself known, and Credence approaches slowly until they’re walking side by side along Broadway.

They’re standing under the shadow of St Paul’s Chapel when Credence reaches out for Mr. Graves’ wrist.

“I’m sorry about the other night. That was unkind.”

“It’s fine.” Mr. Graves looks at the hand around his wrist and then up again at Credence. He releases it as though burnt and hopes the darkness hides the blush he can feel warm his face.

“Not really.” Doesn’t it get tiring acting like nothing fazes you, he wants to ask. He doesn’t, of course he doesn’t.

Mr. Graves digs into a pocket and retrieves a silver cigarette case, and Credence almost laughs at the sight of it. Something must have shown on his face because Mr. Graves holds the case out to him with a raised eyebrow.

“Want one?” The eyebrow climbs higher when he reaches for it and lights it with a finger, holding his empty hands in front of the tip. Warmth rushes through his chest when he takes a drag and slowly releases the cloud of pale smoke.

She had a snuff habit, which she called rapé, to go along with the cigarettes. She had him try it once, laying a small amount on the back of his hand with the thin spoon She unscrewed from the bottle. His eyes had burned and he couldn’t stop sneezing much to Her raucous delight. He preferred the cigarettes.

The way Mr. Graves is looking at him now, dark and heavy, feels like a dare.

“I should go. I’m keeping you.” He can feel his heart beating faster for every second longer that Mr. Graves looks at him.

“Not at all.” Mr. Graves shakes his head, thankfully, horribly, looking away. “Would you like to walk with me for a while?”

Credence nods his head. The cigarette and the unnatural nighttime glare of the city light up Mr. Graves’ face. He can’t see his scar from this angle and it hardly seems real.  It could be a year ago, but he has clothes that fit and a cigarette is dangling from the corner of his mouth and _he’s_ not the same.

He’s not.

~

He freezes at the sound of whistling and dunks himself in the river with a loud splash. He can feel his face flaming as the group of girls walking by explodes in peals of laughter.

He waits, body submerged, until they’ve passed out of sight with their wide brimmed black hats, chattering happily and laughing all the way. Crawling quickly out to shore and throwing his clothes on, he’s still dripping and buttoning his shirt when he reaches Her, who doesn’t seem to have moved since he left, splayed out and enjoying the sun. The heat is so powerful he can hardly breath sometimes.

“Have fun?” He can hear the smirk and he’s certain he’s still blushing.

“You saw them coming my way.” He grumbles, but he imagines the effect is ruined by the water dripping into his eyes.

“I did.” She replied smugly.

“You couldn’t have warned me?” He sits down on his jacket.

“What for? A little embarrassment does young people a world of good.” She continues a second later. “They like you, you know, and you have a face for falling into girls’ beds.”

He lays back, face flaming, and closes his eyes, determined to ignore his companion, lulled by the hot sun and that strange crackling sound that seems to follow Her everywhere.

“You want a boy, then? Want me to find you a strapping farmer with big hands?”

He can’t speak and it’s the deadly silence that gives him away. She turns to look at him.

“Credence.” He doesn’t want to look at Her. A finger under his chin forces his head up and he meets Her eyes. “There is nothing wrong with a little pleasure, if it is freely given and freely received.”

It didn’t feel pleasurable to him, not in the long term. It broke his heart. He drops his head again and feels Her fingers running through his scalp, scratching through the bristle of new hair.

“I thought I was… Before.” He adds, the soothing movement on his head continuing, staring at the opposite river bank. “But I don’t know, he…”

He takes a deep breath and shuts his eyes.

“I think I was never anything to him.” A thumb reaches out to stroke his brow, the sparse hairs a sight better than they were three weeks ago when She had sat him down at the kitchen table and rubbed olive oil where his eyebrows should be.

“That happens, sometimes.”

Newt had told him the whole story before leaving, of course, of the Mr. Graves that really wasn’t, of Gellert Grindelwald and his hateful words. There had been a Mr. Graves before, of course there had been, he had known him, but he’s almost as embarrassed by that one. He’s ashamed of his devotion for scraps of affection, of how his hungry mind had twisted what was probably nothing more than absent acknowledgement for… For what? Fondness? It was pity, at best, he sternly reminds himself.

~

“They told me you had died.” Music is blaring from an open doorway but Credence hears him loud and clear.

“I did, in a way.” A couple walks past them, entangled in one another and Credence and Mr. Graves stand aside. “But there was enough of me to come back.” It sounds so Biblical, when spoken aloud.

In truth, there was water and a dead pig and a strange woman digging through his open ribs. He has a scar running down his chest from that one. _She_ had asked if he wanted her to make it go away but he’d said no. He came back with new flesh when he rose from the water like a newborn, unscarred and uncut, and it had felt wrong to him. His scars had mattered to him and for how much he spent his life hating them, they were a part of Credence Barebone too.

“I liked it there, but it was so strange and so old. There was a roman temple right in the middle of the city and people just walked past it.” Mr. Graves is looking at him and the words catch in his throat.

“People will walk past the most extraordinary things.” He almost doesn’t hear him. He pretends he doesn’t.

“I’d never had oranges before but they were everywhere there.” He mentions as they walk past a grocery store, because he has to say something, he doesn’t know for how much longer he can take this silence, cloying and thick.

He wants Mr. Graves to put his hands on him.

He had almost forgotten how dense and tall New York was and how small it made him feel. And he had always felt smaller than most. The city is taller than when he left, skyscrapers twisting up like weeds. It keeps changing except in the things it should. If anarchism thrives in the wheat fields of Évora, then why should New Yorkers not be angry.

“My house isn’t that far from here.” Mr. Graves interrupts his maudlin thoughts and he nods.

“Right, I should go.”

“No, I mean, do you want to come up? I can Apparate you back to where you’re staying.” He points behind himself.

He should say no.

“Alright.” Damn his mouth.

~

She drags him out of bed one night, wild eyed and he follows Her to a field. Last time he’d seen Her like that, over a hundred people in two cities were lying dead in the streets and he grows every day less fond of governments.

The full moon shines down on them and once his eyes get used to the darkness he turns around.

Stones surround them, some half his height, some towering over him. They feel _old_ , older than him, than Her, as old as the ground. She’s waiting for him at the center, a tall menhir at Her back casting Her in darkness.

He’s frightened.

He’s excited.

Blood is thrumming through his veins, electricity snapping at his heels.

He approaches slowly, feels like a sudden move will disturb something’s rest.

“You must never tell the things you will see this night to anyone. No matter how much you love them. For as long as you live, this will belong to this night and this ground and these stones.”

There’s something ancient and sacred around them, in Her too. He can feel the depths of himself, where that dark, primal thing is, reaching out, crawling out from under his skin, claws bared, teeth snapping. It calls to the night, to the ground, to the stones.

The sun is rising when they return, Credence, half slumped on Her.

He sleeps for three days straight and when he awakens everything feels _more_ , the sun scorches his skin, the sound of crickets pierces his eardrums, and all he can see when his eyelids shut, his brain boiling from the inside, is that circle of stones. It doesn’t dim, but he begins to accept it and when he does, She sits him down on the kitchen table, mortar and weeds around them. She gives him an address on a slip of paper, kisses him on the mouth, motherly and ancient and holy, and sends him off on the first train.

His train is halfway through the Pyrenees when he notices the crackling at the end of his fingertips.

~

Mr. Graves lives in a tall building with a handsome, sober façade. He feels the cloak of heavy oxygen covering him for a second when he steps inside the lobby.

“Magic?”

“Yes.” Mr. Graves answers. “It’s a wizards-only building. There’s a few around the city.” Handsome and clean, with marble indented walls, it was exactly the kind of place he would never have set foot in.

The click of Mr. Graves’ shoes echoes across the lobby and Credence follows him up the stairs. He reaches for his wand once they come to a dark door and Credence realizes he has never seen Mr. Graves’ wand in his own hand. It’s a lovely thing, he thinks, black and heavy, with a silver band. Tasteful.

He doesn’t have one, despite a Portkey arranged by Attila to visit a wandmaker in Graz. She had a wand although She hardly ever used it, and it was a fearsome thing, made of a petrified tree that shocked his hand when he tried to hold it.

“Come in.” Mr. Graves holds the door for him, waving him in inside. The pale cream wallpaper covers the house. It doesn’t look like it fits Mr. Graves, he thinks as they move into a large sitting room, it doesn’t look lived in at all.

He looks away as Mr. Graves removes his coat and his jacket, but the sound of rustling fabric seems especially loud in the room. He’s lived in close quarters with a woman and a man in the past year, seen them in all stages of undress, much to his early mortification, but he can’t bear to look at Mr. Graves doing something so mundane as taking off his coat.

He takes his own heavy coat off and hands it over wordlessly at Mr. Graves’ outstretched hand. He looks away from Mr. Graves’ heavy shoulders under his shirt as he turns his back on him and looks into another room. The color scheme of cream walls and dark curtains bleeds into the next room, identical but for the large, ostentatious pool table in the middle. He should hate him, he thinks, no one person needs all these things, all this space.

Mr. Graves is all the things he should hate. But he didn’t hate him when he lied down in the field behind Her whitewashed house, hidden by the towers of great mulleins blooming yellow in the sun, and he can’t hate him now.

“I didn’t know you played billiards.” He says on the doorway, looking into the other room. Anything not to feel Mr. Graves walking closer, the steady gait. He looks back at him as he walks inside.

“It came with the house, I sold the old one.” He pauses for a second and Credence can see the trepidation on his face.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Oh. Well.” Mr. Graves visibly steels himself before continuing. “I took it up, turns out it’s quite calming.”

“If you’re playing alone.” Credence is determinedly looking at the mirror above the mantle.

It’s jarring to see him like this, in just a dress shirt and a waistcoat. The light is just soft enough that he doesn’t have to look at the scar, but he does, he wants to know he’s not the only one that came out of the whole ordeal in pieces. Mr. Graves hesitates for a moment before handing him a cue stick.

“Thank you.” He tries not to look as Mr. Graves rolls his sleeves up to his elbows and sets the wooden rack aside.

“You do the honors.” Mr. Graves rolls the white ball to him and Credence tells himself this wasn’t a horrible idea when the loud clash of the break echoes across the room.

Then it’s Mr. Graves’ turn and he leans over the table to make his shot, cue stick sliding between his fingers and he can’t decide if it’s the worst or the best idea he’s ever had.

Mr. Graves misses his next shot, and the one after that, and for every obvious mistake the other man makes Credence can feel himself growing angrier. He doesn’t react when Mr. Graves easily concedes defeat and sets the cue sticks away.

“You let me win.” He finally says, leaning back against the table, and he can see Mr. Graves’ shoulders tense from the corner of his eye. Good. “I’m not a child.”

“I never thought you were.” He answers, calmly placing the balls in the racket.

“Didn’t you?”

“No.” Mr. Graves arms fall to his sides and he tilts his head back, eyes closed. Credence would feel bad if this wasn’t a conversation a year overdue. “I thought you were somebody that needed help.”

“And you didn’t give it.”

“No, I didn’t.” He wants to be angry but the admission of guilt takes the wind from his sails and Mr. Graves suddenly appears to him as something unravelling. And he doesn’t want to hurt him, not him, never him. Power for power’s sake, She whispers into his mind and he finds he has no appetite for wanton cruelty.

~

Somehow the Hungarian is waiting for him when he arrives at the train station and he waves off his attempts to pay for the tram ticket. Credence decides to lean back and watch the city pass by his window, the green cusps of trees, the rows of lovely buildings. He almost falls asleep, lulled by the twisting of the tram, when his companion nudges him with his cane.

Attila limps up the stairs to his apartment. A bomb had left his right leg a ruin of muscle and bone, he tells him in a booming laugh, but at least he got an apartment out of it.

It’s a new, modern building in red brick and sleek lines, surrounding a green courtyard where he’d seen a few couples lounging on the green grass, enjoying the June sun. 

“I don’t want to impose.” He says as he’s shown the second bedroom, bright and airy and covered in sheet music. Attila grabs a violin case off the cot and shrugs.

“Anything for the old lady.” He waves Credence off.

~

“I should go.” He almost lunges from the room.

“Please don’t run away.” Mr. Graves’ voice is tense, about to snap.

“I don’t need you.” He wishes his voice didn’t shake.

“I know you don’t.” He wishes Mr. Graves wouldn’t look at him like that. “I know what you think but…” He shakes his head as if to clear it. “It’s true that I never saw you as you deserved, but you did mean something to me.”

“What? What do you see?”

“More than I should have.” He brings a hand up to his forehead, thumb pressing against the temple. He’s making a mess of his hair, Credence thinks deliriously. He’ll swear it was delirium that made him grab Mr. Graves’ free hand.

Mr. Graves drops his hand from his forehead and reaches out tentatively with one hand to cup his cheek, the thumb stroking the corner of his mouth. Credence thinks he looks arrestingly disarmed, like he himself doesn’t quite know what to do.

“Credence…” He had been so riveted with the old image of Mr. Graves, strong and imposing, that the gentle whisper of his name is all the more precious for it. Credence has never been precious before. It’s been a year of firsts.

“It’s ok.” His hand reaches up to curl his fingers around Mr. Graves’ wrist. He reaches forward to lay a kiss on the edge of his mouth, and tells himself it doesn’t mean anything, not really, it’s a kindness, just that. But then Mr. Graves turns his head to press his lips against his. It’s not forceful like the fantasies his lonely, hungry mind had carved up over a year ago, it’s just painfully, excruciatingly tender. He could stay like this forever, the other man’s hand on his cheek a steady weight, warm lips and the slightest scratch of stubble against his skin.

“We’re ok.” He whispers against Mr. Graves’ mouth, who takes the opportunity to press closer, deeper. His mind feels sluggish and feverish at the feeling of the tongue licking into his mouth. He tries to follow when Mr. Graves pulls back.

“I don’t want you to regret…”

“Mr. Graves… Please stop talking.” Credence would never cut him off under normal circumstances. But he’s had an entire year for regrets that he didn’t use and all he wants is this. He feels like he’s wanted this all his life and maybe he has.

He leans his head closer to press a kiss against the too smooth skin of the burnt scar and he can feel Mr. Graves’ sharp intake of breath.

He pushes him away for a second, closing his eyes.

“My name is Percival.” He opens his eyes as he says that.

Percival, his mind exults.

“Percival.” He repeats.

~

Credence meets him in a town hall meeting for their Favoriten department, taking notes for the Sozialdemokratische Partei speaker.

Otto is all sweetness. Earnest and kind and he didn’t make fun of his stilted German and held his hand in the folds of their coats and it’s all the things he never dared to want. They go out to the pictures one evening to watch Metropolis. It’s a tense affair.

“Wahrlich, ich sage Euch: Nahe sind die Tage, von denen die Apokalypse spricht!” The intertitle declares in the darkness of the room and what’s left of his New York days trembles.

Otto kisses him beneath the ogival arches of the Rathaus, cheeks flushed. It’s sweet and perfectly nice and doesn’t feel like a sin.

~

He reaches up a hand to Percival’s chest and his pointer finger tugs at the collar of the now rumpled shirt. A nose nuzzles at his neck and his fingers continue their slow but steady path, popping the buttons open one by one.

Percival’s warm hand rubs his knee through his trousers and he breathes shakily as he leans forward to tug the shirt off the other man’s shoulders.

“Alright?” He whispers in Credence’s ear.

He nods quickly as the hand slides upwards. A huff of warm breath at his throat and an almost unnoticeable shake of Percival’s shoulders makes him blink.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“It’s nothing bad, I swear.” Percival raises his head to look at him and he looks so amused, so fond, that Credence has trouble keeping his frown.

Percival’s hand is now drawing circles on his hip and that is so very distracting. He knows what he’s doing, the wretch, he thinks without any heat.

“I just never thought this day would end like this.” He continues after a long pause.

“I could always leave.”

“Please don’t.” Percival’s hand leaves his hip and reaches up, cupping his cheek. He tilts his head down and kisses him, softly and close-mouthed.

~

Attila is half sauced when he thrusts his violin in Credence’s arms.

“See, this thick one is the Sol string. You know solfeggio?” The Hungarian squinted suspiciously at him until he shakes his head. “Well, no matter. It goes like do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si. This is Sol.” He plucks it and a deep sound reverberates through the room. “Then it’s Re, La, and Mi.” Attila keeps plucking at the strings, each lighter than the last until a sharp, almost glass like sound echoes from the Mi string.

“Here.” He hands a bemused Credence the bow only to snatch it back a second later. “You don’t grab it, you balance it!” It sounds almost like a whine, but he steels himself before continuing. “You hold it gently, like a new lover.” Attila demonstrated, holding the bow in a horizontal line using his thumb and middle finger at the frog. “You try.”

The bow shakes in his hands and Attila grimaces at his poor form before shrugging.

“Eh, good enough.”

Attila falls asleep halfway through a rant on the length of Credence’s arm, and he puts the instrument away as quietly as he can, the bow’s hair leaving a residue of sticky rosin on his hands.

~

Credence doesn’t say anything when Percival draws away from him and settles on his knees between his legs and tugs his socks off. Doesn’t breathe as Percival reaches for the button of his trousers. He doesn’t want to look at him as leans forward and tugs the suspenders off his shoulders but he can’t not look. Won’t look away as he lifts his hips and feels the trousers slide excruciatingly slowly down his legs.

He can feel the magic thrumming under his fingers and it’s powerful and ancient and holy. It’s Her farewell kiss, it’s the circle of stones on a May night, it’s Attila’s drunken violin playing, it’s Percival Graves himself, staring at him, pupils blown wide.

The hand grasping at his thigh is scorching his skin.

He never wants him to let go. He never wants this to end, he thinks as Percival leans in to drop a kiss on his knee. And another.

And _another_.

Credence clenches his fists and bites his lip as he feels that hot mouth moving over his skin.

“You should get this off.” Percival’s hand, and really, they are ridiculous hands, palms at his thigh beneath the union suit. “If you want to, or we could just…”

Credence cuts him off by sitting up quickly and unbuttoning the front of his union suit.

“You’re lovely.” Percival laughs, reaching out and cupping his face before dropping a kiss on his lips. “I always thought you were lovely.”

His hands drop to tug the sleeves off his shoulders and Percival leans back. He frowns at the sight of the scar running down his chest and Credence shakes his head and opens his mouth. And that’s when Percival surges forward to kiss it, in the spot closest to his heart.

He raises his hand to Percival’s head, feeling the strands of hair through his fingers. Percival looks up at him then and he’s almost certain he’s forgotten how to speak. Credence tilts his hips when he feels his hands scrunching the fabric at his waist.

Percival divests himself of his own clothes in a far more utilitarian fashion. Tugging his trousers and socks and his own union suit off and throwing them off the bed without a second glance. Oh.

That’s a lot of Percival Graves.

He inhales deeply once Percival settles between his thighs again, hands on his hips. He’ll take this image to the grave, he’s sure of it, those brown eyes, the mussed hair, the heavy brow, the strong shoulders.

His breath stutters in his throat when Percival starts laying kisses on his legs, inching higher and higher. He grasps at the sheets when he feels that warm mouth on his inner thigh.

“Alright?” Percival’s voice sounds rough and strained and he’s glad he’s not the only one affected.

“Yes.” He chokes out.

Percival nods and dives into him again. Laving kisses everywhere he can reach, nosing on his skin, right hand grasping at the inside of his knee, thumb stroking back and forth until Credence is quite sure he’s going out of his mind.

“Oh my God!” He never imagined _that_.

“Want me to stop?”

“No!” He feels Percival’s shoulders shake in mirth and resists the urge to pinch him just as the other man takes him into his mouth.

It’s so hot and wet and the slurping noises should sound lewd and disgusting to him but they don’t, and he wants to stay like this for the rest of his life.

His mind finds something to focus on and it’s the heavy weight of Percival’s hand on his bent leg, clasped at the back of his knee. It must be his, the stuttering breath he hears, but he truly cannot help himself.

A cry that is almost a sob escapes him and fingers dig at his hip. Tension coils at the pit of his stomach and he comes with a keen.

His eyes close as he lies there panting, absently feeling Percival drop a kiss on his hipbone and move until he’s half on top of him, kissing his cheek and his throat and his jaw. A sheet is pulled up over them. Credence opens his eyes and tilts his head for the kiss Percival inevitably drops on his lips. He draws away slightly and Credence looks down to see him hard.

“Do you want me to?”

“You don’t have to.” Percival is quick to assure him but Credence is still feeling wonderful and hazy and presses his entire body closer. Percival twists his arms around him and drops a kiss at his temple as Credence sneaks a hand between them and reaches for him. The other grabs at the back of Percival’s neck and he takes the time kiss him, open mouthed, breathing him in, as he tugs slowly, thumbing over the head.

His heart isn’t racing as fast anymore and he can appreciate the things he missed before. The sound of their breathing, the way the moonlight from the windows lightens the shine of sweat on Percival’s skin. The mouth that was pressing against his draws away and runs a slow path from his cheek, to his jaw, to the hollow of his throat. It whispers endearments and apologies and “darling, darling, darling” that belong to his ears alone.

He feels Percival’s spread hands against his back, his lips against his throat. He feels so warm in his hand, so solid on top of him, the rhythm of his undulating hips is all the secrets the world should hold.

Percival comes, a long exhale, face pressed against his collarbone. His fingers grasp at the skin of his back and Credence can feel him softening in his hand.

He breathes him in and Percival whispers something unintelligible before his hand is clean. They adjust themselves and Credence lies his head down on Percival’s arm. Credence’s hand reaches up for his face, stroking at all the skin he finds, scarred and otherwise.

~

Vienna is a good city for wandering. His work schedule allows it, an odd job Atilla had found for him, cleaning up after the actors in an old theatre, and he idles away entire afternoons, walking to the other bank of the Danube and back. When it rains, he sits on a pew in the nave of the Votivkirche, listening to the raindrops hit the coloured glass.

One day he falls asleep and when he awakes the rain has passed, the sun is shining, and the stained glass bathes the light church walls in a sea of purple. It’s so beautiful it takes his breath away for a moment. He allows himself to think of Modesty, who he hopes is well, of Chastity, who did deserve far better than what came to her, of the mother he never knew and doesn’t think of the one he did. He thinks of Miss Tina, and Mr. Graves, of all the people and all the places he’s seen. He thinks there must be something to be said for the grace of God, after all.

He lights a candle for them all before he leaves.

**Author's Note:**

> "“Wahrlich, ich sage Euch: Nahe sind die Tage, von denen die Apokalypse spricht!”" - Truly I say unto you: bleak are the days of the Apocalypse of which I speak!
> 
> EDIT: I was told that the translation I provided doesn't quite match the German and the closer one is "Close are the days of which the apocalypse speaks"
> 
> it's historical factoid time
> 
> The Witch of Évora is a mythical figure, and it's more of a title than one single person. Three women have been called Witch of Évora since the 3rd century and only one has had a name. Extremely powerful, she originally appears mentioned as the teacher of Dark Magic of St Cyprian of Antioch (the Book of St Cyprian is THE magic book of the Iberian Peninsula).
> 
> The failed revolt of 1927 ("over a hundred people in two cities were lying dead in the streets"), also known as Reviralho was a failed revolt against the portuguese military dictatorship. 80 people were killed in Porto, the epicenter of the revolt, and 70 in Lisboa, by government forces.
> 
> Vienna was governed by Social Democrats between 1918 and 1934, and was known as Red Vienna during that time. One of the most enduring legacies of the period was an extremely ambitious program of public housing that was in full swing in 1927. In contrast, New York had tenements which, along with having very subpar living conditions, were often controled by organized crime. The first real attempt were the Dunbar Apartments that were only finished in 1928.
> 
> ~ 
> 
> i'm also on tumblr at @braganzas


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